This section introduces aspects that may be helpful to facilitating a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
Recent advances in spatial division multiplexing (SDM) of optical signals show significant promise for increasing the data-carrying capacity of optical fibers. Current development efforts focus primarily on couplers to connect single-mode fibers to multi-mode fibers. Achieving the full potential of multimode fibers will also benefit from addressing other aspects of system design for processing spatially multiplexed optical signals.